Haiku Dialogue: What’s at Hand Week 20

Let’s talk about haiku! Through June 26 we will see what 21 common objects can inspire.

Our theme for June 19 is a broken shell.

Immerse yourself in the theme, then submit one original, unpublished haiku via our Contact Form. Please submit by Saturday, June 15 at 6:00 pm eastern time. Include your name as you would like it to appear and your place of residence.

By submitting you agree that your work may appear in the column — neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent.

I will select haiku that make good use of the theme and that are likely to generate lively discussions. I’ll add some thoughts below each week’s selections to get the conversation started.

Here are my selections for a glass bottle.

worm moon
dipped in the puddle
a glass bottle

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia

bottle on the sidewalk-
glass étude
performed by the wind

Aljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia

through the bottom
of the first bottle
sunset

Ann K. Schwader
Westminster, CO

a bit of sunset
in every shard –
broken bottle

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh,India

early morning sun
colored glass bottles
collecting light

Billy Antonio

the squallsong . . .
a bottle and bag
on the beach

C.R. Harper

holding sunlight
her little glass bottle
filled with sea

Carol Raisfeld

sober faces at the crash site a bottle of wine slowly draining

Christine G
Delisle, SK

sun’s reflection
on a glass bottle and
the mouse is saved

Dubravka Šćukanec
Zagreb, Croatia

raising the mast
of the ship in a bottle
spring clouds unfurl

Edward Cody Huddleston

last resting place
for a ship that never saw
the ocean

Franjo Ordanić

Empty bottle…
I escape the flood
Of memories

Gabriel Awuah Mainoo
Ghana

Champagne toasts
a truckload of empties
rattles down the road

Garry Eaton

first flush
of sour cherries
gran eyes the brandy bottle

Ingrid Baluchi,
Cambridge, UK

origami stars
all my deferred dreams
in a glass bottle

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

wine bottles
become candle holders
faces glowing

Jo El
North Carolina

broken blue bottle
the evening in Paris
he promised me

joanb
NY

Sunday morning—
I sweep the bottle shards
off the sidewalk

John Green

Paris air
bringing home
a readymade sample

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California

wind skimming the valley
song of a breath
across a bottle

Laurie Greer
Washington DC

wind storm –
the last words of a migrant
in a glass bottle

Maria Teresa Piras

the truth —
perhaps at the bottom
of the next bottle?

Mark Meyer

end of summer
listening to the sea
in a glass bottle

Marta Chocilowska
Poland

beach glass
the countless messages
I’ve never sent

Michele L. Harvey

winter morning
the light through
a blue glass bottle

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

dawn
the scavenger’s sack
rattles with empties

Pat Davis
NH, USA

bottle of milk
warmed to body temperature
his second childhood

paul geiger
Sebastopol CA

sea glass
shaped by the tides…
the summer we first met

Polona Oblak
Ljubljana, Slovenia

placidity moon
the scattered warmth of fireflies
in a glass bottle

pratima balabhadrapathruni

our past drifting back sea glass

Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO

widower
the champagne bottle
covered in dust

Roberta Beary
Co Mayo, Ireland

magniloquence
in politics
bottle of gin

Ronald K. Craig
Batavia, OH, USA

little boys
with a glass bottle
brew giants’ pee

Ruth Powell

sunlight refracting
from a glass bottle
a snail’s pace

Sam Reddick

I offer the waves
the last of the genever
the world this haiku

simonj
UK

a glass bottle
crossing the seas
without a message

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

behind a bush
kissing open mouth
two beer bottles

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

last call
the emptiness in the bottle
in me

Stephen A. Peters

empty
like a broken promise
your wine bottle

Susan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA USA

in the morning
a glass bottle at my doorsill
no message

Vessislava Savova

a clinking bottle
moon down
at the dump

Vicki Miko

How many bottles have passed through your hands? They’re everywhere, but even the most common — if observed under the right circumstances — can transport you.

Light through glass is a good basis for haiku. To this Ann K. Schwader adds anticipation of the oncoming night, through the juxtaposition of “the first bottle” and “sunset.” The nature of the anticipation is artfully left for the reader to intuit.

The play of sunlight on glass is insubstantial and ephemeral. Dubravka Šćukanec gives us a moment where such a transient thing changes the fate of another being. We’re left with the mystery of how the mouse was saved, but a sense of interconnection between light, life, and us.

Franjo Ordanić makes clever use of this week’s prompt in his eloquent and slightly sad poem. Though not mentioned, given the context, his ship’s bottle is strongly present.

Naturally, sea glass and messages in bottles were subjects in several poems this week. Michele L. Harvey nicely combines them with a poignant self observation.

You won’t need bottles to send messages to us. Just insert them into the comment section below.

Guest Editor Craig Kittner lives near the banks of the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina. He has worked as a gallery director in Washington, DC, and a program director for the Kentucky Arts Council. He took second prize in the North Carolina Poetry Society Bloodroot Haiku Award for 2019.

Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada and an Associate Member of the League of Canadian Poets. She co-edited an anthology of crime-themed haiku called Body of Evidence: a collection of killer ’ku.

Comments

Thank you, Craig, for including my verse.
As always I appreciate all the verses here, some bringing back old memories, like the bottle of Evening in Paris perfume:
.
broken blue bottle
the evening in Paris
he promised me
joanb
.
Thanks also to Alan for your comments. I chose a wine bottle, as wine implies a celebration. On his way to celebrate something and had a few before? In this case the celebration has been cut short.

Hi Christine! 🙂
.
You said:
“Thanks also to Alan for your comments. I chose a wine bottle,
as wine implies a celebration.
.
On his way to celebrate something and had a few before?
In this case the celebration has been cut short.”
.
.
Yes, wine, can be celebratory or something to lose ourselves into as a solitary act. We can certainly draw a great range of interpretations, which is the rich vein of monoku sometimes.
.
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sober faces at the crash site a bottle of wine slowly draining
.
Christine G
Delisle, SK
.
Alan said:
.
“The act of a bottle “slowly” draining is an excellent observation whether this is an aircraft downed, or drunk driving.”

I debated for awhile before doing this in one line. I remember your comment about how, if it should be a monoku, it just doesn’t sound right divided into three lines. And that’s how I felt about this one, when I tried it.

Thanks Craig for including my poem! I am a little late in posting my comments as my mama is terribly sick. Today its time to send out new ones. But I did get to see the blog with such incredible responses one cannot help but wait eagerly for this feature each week. All poems are gorgeous, mentioning a few

Thank you so much, Craig Kittner, for posting my haiku.
Every poem has feeling!

My notes:

our past drifting back sea glass
*
Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO
*
I loved thinking about Rich’s poem, “drifting” back to the very first time I saw “sea glass”. Well… it really wasn’t the sea, it was Lake Superior. At six years old, the lake looked bigger than the sea and every stone was a keeper.

—

early morning sun
colored glass bottles
collecting light
*
Billy Antonio
*
Billy’s poem also brings back another vivid memory. A street sculptor who made beautiful water fountains out of cement. They were inlaid with the bottoms of “colored glass bottles”. His stash of bottles, waiting to be cut, lined up in the “early morning sun”, “collecting light”.

—

broken blue bottle
the evening in Paris
he promised me
*
joanb
NY
*
joanb’s melancholy poem brings a more happy memory to me. That tear-drop shaped deep blue bottle sat on my mom’s vanity, forever. She never dabbed it on though, it was never used. More a decoration, I think.

—

dawn
the scavenger’s sack
rattles with empties
*
Pat Davis
NH, USA
*
Nice! Thinking about the story behind Pat’s poem could be comical or sad, depending. I like the way our poems kind of fit in that way, too. Perhaps as …the day after the night before 😊.

—

wind storm –
the last words of a migrant
in a glass bottle
*
Maria Teresa Piras
*
Maria Teresa’s poem in so few words (!!), is chilling as the “wind storm”!

—

last resting place
for a ship that never saw
the ocean
*
Franjo Ordanić
*
This poem seems to reveal Franjo’s passion for the craft of building a “ship” in a bottle. Or maybe a passionate tribute to a deeper story in there somewhere, “for a ship that never saw / the ocean”. Without a mention of a bottle, we know it’s the ship’s “last resting place”.

Here are my favorites for this week:
.
.
empty
like a broken promise
your wine bottle
Susan Rogers
.
Nice first line to set the stage, Susan. Both lines 1 and 2 and lines 2 and 3 fit together nicely to show the sadness of the experience.
.
last call
the emptiness in the bottle
in me
Stephen A. Peters
.
Emptiness serves two meanings. Well-written image, Stephen!
.
a glass bottle
crossing the seas
without a message
Slobodan Pupovac
.
To me this poem signifies all glass bottles that end up as trash in our oceans! There may be no message in the bottle but the bottle is the message. We do not recycle!
.
widower
the champagne bottle
covered in dust
Roberta Beary
.
In this situation there is nothing left to celebrate. Sad but true.
.
sea glass
shaped by the tides . . .
the summer we first met
Polona Oblak
.
It’s unclear if this relationship lasted, but clearly we are shaped by first meetings and first impressions. Relationships polish our personality like water shapes glass.
.
dawn
the scavenger’s sack
rattles with empties
Pat Davis
.
I can hear this person coming down the street at the break of dawn. S/he is hoping to make enough change to survive another day!
.
the truth –
perhaps at the bottom
of the next bottle?
Mark Meyer
.
I like this one a lot! The word “perhaps” is so fitting and the question mark is absolutely necessary to convey the feeling: haven’t found it yet. Will we find it in the next bottle? Well, there’s always another one!
.
Empty bottle . . .
I escape the flood
Of memories
Gabriel Awuah
.
The drink floods the mind and soul and has a way of washing away the bad times which would overwhelm us otherwise!
.
holding sunlight
her little glass bottle
filled with sea
Carol Raiasfeld
.
To me this has to be a child experiencing the wonders of capturing a “little” bit of the sea! And, it glistens! Neat! My favorite!
.
a bit of sunset
in every shard –
broken bottle
arvinder kaur
.
Broken bottles wash ashore. The salt water creates sea glass over time. I can visualize all the colors of the sunset gleaming off a beach. Nice poem, arvinder.
.
Many others have been commented on (below) or deserve comment by others.
Ron
.

Another nice mix this week.
.
raising the mast
of the ship in a bottle
spring clouds unfurl
.
Edward Cody Huddleston
.
I enjoyed the images of the white sail and spring clouds.
.
magniloquence
in politics
bottle of gin
.
Ronald K. Craig
.
Now that I’ve learned what that word means, this made me smile.

Thanks for appreciating my haiku, Marta. It is based on memories of children and adults in the city collecting empty bottles to cash them in for extra money way back in the 1950’s. I’d like to say “ditto” to Alan’s remarks about your “end of summer” ku – well-done!

Oh yes, Wendy, I have touching memories about the bottle on my mom’s vanity, but ya know, I can’t recall the fragrance. Mom never used it, and I think the time I did take a whiff of it, it had turned a bit alcoholly strong :-O

origami stars
all my deferred dreams
in a glass bottle
.
Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA
.
.
I loved the unusual opening line, which at first I thought you were saying the stars were like origami, but they must actually be origami! 🙂
.
Origami, of course, can make us think of the original Bladerunner movie, where the idea of origami creations being left at a scene etc… are very much emulated.
.
Choosing when to keep or leave out certain favourite words is always a challenge. When do we decide over the baby, bathwater, or the bath itself?
.
The key word for me is “all” which could have all to easily have been removed in the final crafted version, but thank goodness it was kept! The whole haiku revolves around ‘all’.
.
Brilliant! 🙂

As usual, a lot of great responses to the prompt, and I hope the accumulated comments help cover all the poems.

.
.

Russian novelist Anton Chekhov once said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
.
.
I recall that when I was younger and might frequent difficult pubs, I’d listen out for glass being broken, in order to defuse an incident, or protect both friends, and anyone vulnerable.
.
.
That makes this one line all the more poignant, as we know alcohol causes more grief than even hard drugs, as unbelievable as that may seem.
.
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sober faces at the crash site a bottle of wine slowly draining
.
Christine G
Delisle, SK
.
The act of a bottle “slowly” draining is an excellent observation whether this is an aircraft downed, or drunk driving.
.
.

first flush
of sour cherries
gran eyes the brandy bottle
.
Ingrid Baluchi,
Cambridge, UK
.
.
Love the opening line that then segues into sour cherries. Ah, cherry brandy? Disgusting as it was, we all eyed that bottle, even outside of Christmas.
.
.

Love that opening line!!! And a poignant 2-line phrase that follows, and how ‘deferred’ isn’t actually redundant, but adds its own sad nuance.
.
.

Sunday morning—
I sweep the bottle shards
off the sidewalk
.
John Green
.
.
You must have had an amazing house party! 🙂
.
I’m guessing this is a residential semi-street party, overflowing from a house, rather than the usual city streets. As long as there wasn’t too much blood, and accoutrement of drug-taking.
.
Yes, a Sunday morning seems at odds with the after-party aftermath, but sadly too many people are clumsy and wilful drinking in the streets. Even when I’d get really tipsy, I never broke or left any glasses or bottles.
.
.
Paris air
bringing home
a readymade sample
.
Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California
.
.
Wasn’t sure if this was a perfume souvenir, or that consumer trick of bottling local air. 🙂 Thanks to Craig, I’m reminded of Duchamp who was as commercial savvy as Picasso!
.
.

wind skimming the valley
song of a breath
across a bottle
.
Laurie Greer
Washington DC
.
.
A gently beautiful haiku! Love that first line, as well as ‘song of a breath’ both magnificent lines!
.
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wind storm –
the last words of a migrant
in a glass bottle
.
Maria Teresa Piras
.
.
Deeply poignant. It’s Anne Frank’s birthday anniversary today, with a portrait of her as both a girl and what she might have looked like at 90 years old. Migrants, immigrants, refugees, and other categories, should be seen as human first, but rarely so, it seems. Great haiku!
.
.

end of summer
listening to the sea
in a glass bottle
.
Marta Chocilowska
Poland
.
.
Great meeting up with you, even if it was mostly in corridors, and no chance to sit down and talk. 🙂
.
I love how the present participle which becomes a gerund really works here! I can imagine the end of Summer, or the end of a holiday season, and an empty bottle listening to each other. Wonderful!
.
.

beach glass
the countless messages
I’ve never sent
.
Michele L. Harvey
.
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I am so guilty of this too! I used to be able to meet most people in person, regardless of country or region, city etc… and my new found sister is someone I should somehow social media talk to more often. Love that opening line, because it really resonates in different ways, including a message in a bottle so long ago, that the contents have gone and the bottle is now beach glass. Brilliant!
.
.

magniloquence
in politics
bottle of gin
.
Ronald K. Craig
Batavia, OH, USA
.
.
I love the occasional over-long single word that goes against the grain for a haiku! 🙂
.
magniloquence: use of high-flown language
.
It was recently the anniversary of the great gin painter Hogarth, and now we have the landed gentry doing a new leadership dance in spite of a national crisis of knife-crime, and having one of the world’s greatest child poverty, to such an extreme that Britain is shamefully being investigated by the United Nations. Neat senryu!
.
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a clinking bottle
moon down
at the dump
.
Vicki Miko
.
.

Love sound being prevalent in a haiku! Love that ‘moon down’ and its sister line of ‘at the dump’. So much suggested but never told! Brilliant use of withholding but giving so much at the same time.
,
,

I’d just like to share a new post/article by myself, which although addresses one line haiku, it’s as relevant as any other treatment of haiku:
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The layering of meaning beyond the immediate: The “now” in monoku:
.https://area17.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-layering-of-meaning-beyond.html
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p.s. Partly included this wonderful haiku because there’s a typo in Carol’s name, but it’s also a lovely verse too! 🙂
.
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holding sunlight
her little glass bottle
filled with sea
.
Carol Raisfeld
.
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Lovely opening line, bang in straight with the verb, and a charming middle line, and another verb in the last line.
.
Although ‘filled’ neatly feels like an adjective e.g. a bottle “filling’ with sea
and neatly avoids the sometimes distracting ‘ing’ words, as it could have been ‘filling with sea’ which is beautiful, but the opening line might have then been under consideration to alter ‘holding’ which is such a wonderful word with sunlight! 🙂
.
.

Thanks, Alan. Just as one takes time to savor the botanicals rolling over the tongue, I found this rather long word, in conjunction with the other lines, rolled off the tongue without difficulty. Glad you enjoyed this gustatory experience! Ron

Thank you, Alan, for your comment on my poem. Each to our own taste, I guess, because I love cherry brandy! Looking out of my kitchen window in Ohrid right now, my neighbour’s sour cherries are ‘blushing’ as spring gradually ripens her tree, and soon Macedonian markets will be brimming over with this impossible-to-eat fruit for people to pop into their gallons of rakia (brandy) to store away and mature, just as my grandmother would do each year. And after the drink was imbibed on special occasions, bringing a flush to the cheeks, the cherry residue would go on to make a delicious jam with which to sweeten black tea poured straight from a bubbling samovar, taking the place of sugar.

No offence meant, I’ve drunk the stuff as a kid, and youngster, and young adult, and possibly off and on at people’s houses, if they offered. 🙂
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I try to avoid sweet liquors now, but we do get a few in for Christmas, and if untouched over December, then the option is revisited in the next year. 😉
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I do like egg nog or Advocaat with lots of cherries though! 🙂

Thank you, Alan! Your reviews are so meaningful. I appreciate and learn from every word. Haiku gives me an endless prompt, that’s the beauty of it. The themed prompts challenge me to my own twist. I love reading all the haiku, too, a delightful way to tap my own memory library.

Loved further reading some of your beautiful poems with commentary!

Yes, sometimes those “layers” can come very easy and then again…it can be really hard to get that vision in your head reduced down to a few sweet words 😉

My wife is a professor at a nearby university—a short walk to her office—which is lovely. However, on weekends the students tend to overdue the reveling, leading to a thoughtless/careless act as they walk past our apartment building. As building manager, I must tidy up after the nastiness!